Collecting Otherwise
Trans-Institutional Supra-Archives
In archival research there is a term--fonds--which means the entire corpus of records created by an institution, organisation or person. I think about the fonds in relation to the Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen archive, one of the case studies of the Collecting Otherwise group. This new archive was recently donated to Het Nieuwe Instituut, but part of it was already held at Atria, the institute on gender equality and women's history in Amsterdam. Neither institute, therefore, has the complete fonds of VBW.
Unless a researcher is focused on the hows and whys behind the placement in a particular institution, where an archive is held is not fundamental to their research and their ability to get the most out of the archive. Whether the archive is at Atria or Het Nieuwe Instituut doesn't matter to the researcher, other than needing to know which archive to visit.
But beyond the fonds we can think about something even larger. A single story cuts across multiple archives. Archival institutions need to be aware of how their holdings interact and overlap with archives held elsewhere. This criss-crossing archive is what I refer to as trans-institutional supra-archives. These trans-institutional supra-archives are the ones we create, finding relevant information across institutional boundaries, linking archives based on what we seek, not where it is held. Het Nieuwe Instituut can also build these trans-institutional supra-archives, connecting its material with material outside its walls, linking archives based on their contents and contexts and not just their physical location.